Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus

To fill in the German around the audiobook.

Translated and read by Stephen Mitchell. I love Rilke so instead of commenting on the poems, I'll kvetch a little about some of the shortfalls of audiobooks. In book form, does this translation have an introduction? Explanatory notes? A facing page in the original German? In addition to the pretty clear sense at times of not getting the whole book, I also wonder how to convert audio duration to pages. It doesn't trouble me that much, but I find myself more drawn to novels as I peruse audiobooks. It's a nuisance to read non-fiction and then go to a bookstore or library to look at intros, afterwords, end notes, and diagrams. In any event, Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus work very well together and I enjoyed Mitchell's somewhat academic but non-intrusive reading. ( )

Who if I cried, among the hierarchy of angels would hear me?... for beauty is nothing but the beginning of a terror that calmly refuses to crush you.

Rilke, in this comprehensive translation of two major works, crafts powerful yet elegant poetic odes to the majesty of the human experience and its relationship to the external world. A realm in which the human being exists in quandary and struggle. The translation is quite readable and often beautiful, but sometimes a little uneven. I would like to compare it to other translations. ( )

For my taste this is not the best translation, but I do like certain parts. These are two of Rilke's major works (The third being the Book of Hours). I would not use this as my primary translation, but if you are looking for a second copy, this is more than adequate. ( )